Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any shape or form. Nor do i own the right to call school houses after Penfro, Conwy, Harlech and Raglan castles. That belongs to my primary school or the castles.

Geth342: I should be doing my J&H fic. but this got stuck in my head. Hopefully not very lame. I also hope my welsh is up to scratch but i could be wrong. For those who do not speak welsh or are too lazy to translate it, i have translations in brackets. Well, enjoy, please read and review!

The Hidden Serpent.

I know that I possess a lot of the qualities found in my house. I am a cold person. I like to manipulate people. I can think of no better thing than outsmarting an enemy. And I just don't see the point in heroics. Sure, you might save the world from 'evil' but chances are that you will die in the attempt and really, you were better off not bothering. Besides, if evil is winning, you should side with it. Better things come your way.

In fact, the only thing that is wrong with me is that I am not a pureblood. Nor am I a half blood. I am muggle born, a 'mudblood' as my friends so nicely put it.

I am Zac Carew, only son of Thomas Carew, a baker, and Lisa Carew, a teacher. Until the age of eleven I attended a welsh primary school where all the lessons were taught in Welsh. At first I thought it was cool- I could speak in a language which no one else could understand. But eventually it was just annoying. I mean, why teach every subject in Welsh? How on earth do you learn English in Welsh? Whenever I asked, my teacher would just say:

'Mae Gymraeg yn biwsig iawn. Dim siarad Zac." (Welsh is very important. Don't talk Zac) After a moment or two I would generally ask (in English) why it was so important. All I got in reply was:

'Dim siarad yn Saesneg. Siarad yn Gymraeg os gwelydd yn dda' (Don't talk in English. Talk in Welsh please.) Go figure.

I was never bullied in school- people feared me. Not because I would bully them, although I was unafraid of fighting, but because they knew that I would seek revenge if they hurt me. It might be as simple as a thumbtack on their chair, or something as large as public humiliation. And no one could ever catch me at it, because weird things always happened to help me. When one boy threw my coat in a puddle, I fixed his chair so that it would fall the moment he sat on it. When he fell, he swore he had seen me do it, but a girl said she had seen me during the time it would have taken me to do it. I thought I had done the deed extraordinarily quickly, but I said nothing. It was just one more successful plot on my behalf.

I only had one proper friend in primary school.

When I got the letter, on the first day of the summer holidays, I was stunned. All the weird things I had done had been magic. And these people were willing to teach me more! All the people who had tried to bully me in school would regret it when they met me again.

I bought all my stuff with my parents and, on the 1st September I said goodbye to them. They were unable to get through the barrier, so we had to part by the ticket box. I did feel a bit teary as I hugged them, but I certainly wasn't sobbing as much as my mother, whose tears could probably have filled a small paddling pool.

As I wandered onto the train I couldn't stop smiling. I was actually going to a magic school. I would be performing magic. I just couldn't get over that idea. I put my luggage away and found an empty compartment. As soon as I had sat down, I picked up my basic spells book. I wanted to be one step ahead of everyone. If there's one thing I hate, it's being called an idiot.

About five minutes after the train had begun to move, two giggling girls poked their head through the doorway. One of them, a girl with blonde hair giggled and asked if they could sit in the compartment with me. I shrugged and nodded. I may be a cold person, but I'm not rude. There was no particular reason for them not to sit there.

The other girl, a red head, smiled gratefully at me.

"Thanks. It's impossible to find an empty compartment on this train." I nodded and went back to reading. I wasn't particularly interested in what they were saying, but as it turned out, they were determined to get to know me.

"So, you a first year too?" Blondie asked. I nodded and went back to reading. Blondie was not deterred. "What's your name then?" I sighed and put my book down. I know a lost cause when I see one.

"Zac Carew," I muttered, "And you?"

"I'm Shelly Grant, and this is Tammy Rowland." Blondie said, pointing to the red head. I smiled blandly at them.

"Nice to meet you," I murmured. Like I said, I am not a rude person, or at least, I like to think that I'm not. Shelly smiled and murmured something in reply. Tammy merely nodded, smiling shyly.

As the train journey wore on, the pair began talking about something called houses.

"Look, Ravenclaw is all well and good, but Gryffindor is better," Shelly was saying, "Bravery is better than just being smart." Tammy shook her head.

"You're missing the point Shel. If you're smart, you know when to be brave." She looked at me. I hurriedly wiped the look of confusion from my face. "What do you think Zac?" I thought quickly and replied,

"Oh…uh…Ravendor. Yeah, that one." I smirked, pleased with my bluff. The girls however were not impressed because Shelly sniggered and Tammy tentatively asked:

"Ravendor? Is that a cross between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw?" She grinned. I blushed, ashamed of my ignorance.

"How the heck do I know? I've never heard of these things before." I snapped. The girls were taken aback.

"You mean you're a muggle born?" Shelly asked.

"What?"

"You're parents and family are muggles- non magical." Tammy explained.

"Yeah. So what?" At the time I didn't think that muggle parents were anything to be ashamed of. Fool.

"Nothing. We just thought…" The girls looked at each other. Shelly carried on speaking. "We just thought that you might be Edgar Howell's cousin. He's a first year as well, and you look a bit like Edgar…I mean you have the same nose and hair…" She trailed off weakly. I looked down at myself, puzzled. I was quite tall and skinny with coppery hair, a small nose and piercing blue eyes (or so I had been told). There plenty of people around who looked like that.

"Well, my cousins are called Jack and Sharon and I look like my dad. So sorry to disappoint." I sneered, then, giving them one last frosty glance, I picked my book up again. Shelly sniggered nastily.

"Well sooorrry Mr. Grumpy. Geez you're getting all offended for no reason." I shrugged and carried on reading. I didn't particularly want to listen to her babble any more. I hadn't even wanted to talk to her anyway. Tammy however took a different view.

"We didn't mean to offend you Zac." She said softly. "We were just surprised is all. We don't have anything against muggle-borns. That's the Slytherins job." I nodded, accepting her apology and then frowned.

"Slytherins?" I asked.

"One of the four Hogwarts' houses." Tammy replied. "You have Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw." I nodded to show I was keeping up. I couldn't believe that I was so ignorant. "Gryffindor is the house for brave and chivalrous people. Its colour is red and gold and its emblem is a lion. Ravenclaw is for people who are really into studying. Blue and bronze for them with an eagle. Hufflepuff is generally for loyal people, hard working. They have yellow and black, and a badger. Slytherins are nasty pieces of work. They're cunning but they only look out for themselves. They've got a snake as their emblem, and they're green and silver."

"So, they're like school groups? Like in my old school we had Penfro, Harlech, Conwy and Raglan. Kids got sorted randomly though." I thought I might be getting it. "They had colours and everything- green for Raglan, blue for Penfro, red for Harlech and yellow for Conwy. We weren't really enemies or anything though." Tammy nodded appreciatively.

"Yeah, that's almost right. But what house you're in determines a lot. And everyone has different ideas. I want to be in Ravenclaw, but Shelly wants to be in Gryffindor, probably because Harry Potter was in that house." I had no idea what she was on about but I didn't tell her that. I already looked like an idiot. "Hardly anyone wants to be in Hufflepuff, but they're way better than Slytherin. Most of the death eaters were in Slytherin. So was You-Know-Who."

"No, I don't know who. What are you on about?" I was finally losing patience. Shelly looked shocked and decided to quit her sudden vow of silence.

"You've never heard of You-Know-Who? You're joking right?"

"Yes, ha ha, I got you." I muttered bitterly. What kind of idiot was she? "No, I haven't. Are you gonna tell me who he or she is or not?" They exchanged glances. It seemed to be a habit of theirs.

"He was…he was this guy who tried to take over the Wizarding world twice. He died, I think thirty years ago."

"He doesn't sound that scary." I commented. "Does 'this guy' have a name?"

"You shouldn't sound so casual about it. If he'd won, you wouldn't be here. You'd be dead." Shelly sounded furious and I could not work out why. I'm not good at working out what I've done wrong, which I suppose is quite bad.

"Why would I be dead?" I queried in a bored voice. If she was going to be rude to me, I wasn't going to show how curious I was.

"Because you're a muggle born." She spat out.

"Ah, but I thought that didn't make any difference to you," I said in my new infuriating voice. Her face turned a rather interesting shade of purple. Tammy intervened.

"It doesn't. Well, not to us, or most people. But when You-Know-Who was in power they really hated muggles and muggle borns. They just went around…well, killing them. The Slytherins were all for him." She smiled at me. "So you have absolutely no chance of being in Slytherin which is a good thing."

"Oh yeah," I murmured with fake enthusiasm. Even then I found the Slytherins somewhat interesting (apart from their death threat against me) and I was disappointed that I wouldn't be considered for that house. "So, what happened to Guy?"

"Guy?"

"My new nickname for You-Know-Who since you won't tell me his real name." I smirked.

"No one says his real name. Fine, it's Voldemort, but don't make me say it again. Anyway, about…forty seven years ago he tried to kill this boy called Harry Potter, but he failed and disappeared for about thirteen years. Then, he came back and about thirty years ago, he tried to take over again and succeeded, but Harry Potter fought him and killed him. My dad still remembers those times and he was only six. Says they were pretty horrible." She smiled at me, a contrast to her words.

"So, if he's dead, why don't you like saying his name? It is a pretty odd name, but I'm sure nothing too bad could happen." Shelly was being left out of the conversation, but I didn't notice.

"We just don't like it. Hey, you've never heard of Quidditch have you?" She said by way of changing the subject.

"No…Have you ever heard of football?"

"No, anyway, you need to know about Quidditch…" She then proceeded to spend two hours talking to me about it. And I listened very carefully, determined to learn all I could.

As the sun began to set, a boy, apparently a prefect, came in and told us to get changed into our uniforms. The girls looked pointedly at me so I grabbed my new school robes and shuffled out of the compartment. I couldn't help feeling that as I had gotten there first, they should have been the ones who left to get changed but it seemed too trivial to argue over, so I sloped off to a nearby toilet in which to get changed.

Having changed into robes, I hunted around for my wand, which I had dropped on the floor. Picking it up, I left the toilets and stood in the corridor inspecting the wand for the hundredth time since I had bought it. It was quite long (twelve inches according to Mr. Olliviander) and made of elm with a dragon heartstring core. I smiled briefly, then walked back to the compartment. To my surprise there were a group of boys in there. I stood outside the door and listened to the conversation.

"Look, could you leave us alone please? We need to change." That was Shelly's voice.

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we boys?" A deep voice said.

"Nah. Two pretty girls, what could be better? Come on Jon, I've got this one." As far as I could see, a black haired boy had sat down next to Tammy and had his arm around her. She tried to move away, but he held her tight.

"Leave us alone. Please," She said desperately. The boy merely laughed at her and attempted to kiss her. I walked into the room.

"Hey, leave her alone you freak," I yelled without thinking. Which was odd, because I tend to think before I act. Less likely to end up dead that way. Kisser boy looked at me, and I was suddenly aware of how old he looked. At least thirteen and certainly better at magic than I was. I glared at him.

"Why do you want me to do that?" He said slowly. I glanced at his robes. There was a red trim around the collar.

"You're a Gryffindor aren't you? You're supposed to be chivalrous. So let her go." I sneered in reply. Not a particularly wise thing to do.

"Are you going to make me?" Kisser asked. His oafish friends all sniggered. I felt my temper rise and without thinking, I punched him on the nose. He stopped laughing.

"Leave." I ordered, not betraying how nervous I was. He merely smiled viciously at me.

"What if I don't want to?" He grabbed the collar of my robes. "Perhaps I want to do this!" He punched me in the nose as well. I snarled and kicked out at him, landing a kick in his stomach.

Then we were brawling. He could probably have stopped me with magic but he had forgotten that. All we cared about was causing each other pain, and he was winning- he was big and strong whereas I was scrawny. I shouldn't have gotten into that fight.

The next thing I knew, I couldn't move. The good news was, neither could Kisser boy. A youngish man was in the middle of the compartment.

"Mr. Trott," He said to Kisser boy, "You would do well to stop struggling or I will not lift the spell." He made a motion and suddenly my mouth could move again.

"Yes professor," Kisser muttered resentfully. The man turned to me.

"Now…I don't believe I know you. First year are you?"

"Yes sir."

"Not a good impression Mr…" He left the sentence hanging in the air.

"Carew. Zac Carew." I finished for him. My lip began to bleed but I couldn't move my arm to wipe the blood away.

"Well, Mr. Carew may I be the first to point out that the best way to arrive at Hogwarts is not by fighting other students." He glanced at Kisser and then at me. "I suppose I should heal your wounds a bit." He waved his wand again and suddenly my mouth stopped bleeding, and I was in considerably less pain. Kisser boy also looked much better. I took advantage of my new found health to protest.

"I was only fighting because he wouldn't leave my friends alone." I didn't really think the girls were my friends, especially not Shelly, but it was best to start on that note. Certainly better than trying to sound like a knight in shining armour by saying he wouldn't leave two random girls alone.

"Is that true Mr. Trott?" The man asked calmly.

"No professor. He just attacked me randomly." The other boy protested.

"Yeah, 'cause I really have nothing better to do with my life," I sneered. "I've never met you. Why on earth would I suddenly want to beat you up, especially if you're bigger than me and can perform magic?" Even I had to stop and think that one over. What had possessed me to fight him? The man however seemed to agree with me.

"Well Mr. Trott, Mr. Carew here has an interesting point. I don't see any reason for him to randomly attack you." He turned to Shelly and Tammy. "Perhaps you girls can shed some light on the situation. What happened?" I couldn't help wondering why he didn't just use a spell to make us tell the truth.

"Well…" Tammy began hesitantly. "Well…me and Shelly were sitting in here with Zac for most of the train journey. A prefect came in and told us to get into our robes, so Zac left to get changed and give us some privacy to get changed. Just after he'd left, Darren Trott, Jon Stickler and the rest of these boys came into the compartment and started talking to us. We talked back, but then Jon grabbed Shelly and tried to kiss her. She pushed him away and told him to go away, but he just laughed. And then Darren grabbed me and tried to kiss me and I wasn't too happy. And then Zac ran into the room yelling at Darren to leave me alone. He started saying that he didn't want to so Zac told him to leave. When he didn't Zac…punched him in the nose." She blushed and looked at me, ashamed that I hadn't been put in a better light. I decided not to point out that I had hit him before ordering him to leave. "Then they were fighting until you came in sir." She stopped and decided to take a breath from her long monologue. The boys were glaring daggers at her (except for Darren…no, I couldn't call him that. It had to be Kisser. Anyway, he was still bound like me, so he couldn't glare much) and Shelly was nodding defiantly. The man hummed for a moment.

"As far as I can tell, Mr. Trott, you are in the wrong here. As it is not term, I cannot officially punish your house. However I expect a written note of apology to Mr. Carew and the two girls." He flicked his wand again and suddenly I could move. I used my new found ability to glare at Kisser, who was apologising to the man. He left with his head hung low. His friends followed. The man turned to me. "Mr. Carew, fighting is not an acceptable way to settle a dispute. I expect you to also write a letter of apology to Mr. Trott. Is that understood?" I was speechless. I had to write a letter to that jerk for trying to do the right thing for once.

"Yes." I muttered sullenly.

"When you address a teacher, Mr. Carew, you say Yes Professor or Yes Sir." He said dangerously. "So, I'll ask again. Do you understand?"

"Yes Professor," I murmured.

"Good. I'll leave you three then. And girls, you need to get changed." With that, he turned on his heel and left. Immediately Tammy ran up to me and hugged me.

"You were so brave Zac. Thank you so much," she gushed. I shook her off.

"It's okay. Gerroff Tammy." She stopped hugging me for which I was thankful. I walked to the door. "I'll let you two get changed." I offered then left. I only stood a meter away from the door. I wasn't going to let Kisser and his gang come back.

They didn't return. About ten minutes after the girls had gotten changed the train came to a halt. We left it rather nervously, although I tried not to make it show. I didn't want people thinking I was a wimp.

A giant started shouting for first years to use the boats. Everyone looked quite scared at this prospect, so I sauntered forward with Tammy and Shelly nervously following, and jumped into a boat. People followed my lead and I smirked. I knew I still had the ability to manipulate them. My good deeds hadn't taken it away from me.

The boats moved by themselves. I couldn't believe it. Shelly was looking a bit green in the lamplight and Tammy certainly wasn't as happy as she had been on dry land, but I was grinning. I was actually going to learn magic!

We got out of the boats and went into a giant castle. An old plump man was waiting to greet us.

"Hello new students and welcome to Hogwarts. My name is Professor Trent and I am the deputy head here. In just a few minutes you will be taken into the Great Hall to be sorted into one of the four houses. During your time here, your house will be like your family. You can gain points for good work but lose them for misbehaviour." He surveyed us carefully. "I hope I never see any of you in detention, but I know that you'll end up there anyway." He sighed. "I will return for you." As soon as he left I turned to Tammy and muttered:

"That was very foreboding. Is he Darth Vader or something?"

"What?" She said, bewildered. I blushed.

"N-nothing," I replied. Tammy shrugged and smiled. I kept my eyes down, calculating. I didn't want to make any blunders, not at the beginning. First impressions may be wrong but they usually stick. Next to me, a thin brown haired boy looked at me. I caught his eye and he winked. I smiled back uncertainly. Before he could say anything, Professor Trent came back.

"First years, this way please." We followed obediently into a huge room. Hundreds of people were sitting at tables, and a group of adults were sitting at a table near the door. In front of them was a stool with an old hat on. The teacher stood by it with a list. Suddenly the hat burst into song. I was pretty surprised but I wasn't the only one. A girl in front of me jumped. The song was quite dire, just about the qualities of each house. I found myself thinking wistfully of rock music. When it was done the old man took out a list and read:

"Abin, Colin" A scrawny blond kid walked to the stool, sat down and put the hat on. A few seconds after he put it on the hat declared him a Ravenclaw. The lining on his robes changed colour to blue and the people at the middle table cheered wildly.

A few more people were called and sorted into different houses, although none were in Slytherin I noticed. Then:

"Carew, Zac." I gave a little wave to Tammy, who smiled at me, and then I walked to the stool, sat down and put the hat on. Instantly a little voice spoke in my ear.

"Ah, what have we here? Hmm, there's lots of courage, and a healthy thirst for knowledge. Don't like ignorance do we?" I could sense it's smirk, even though it had no face. "Ability to work hard, always important but…ah. Here we go. Cunning, quick wits and ambition. But…vast ignorance of the magical world? A muggle-born! Interesting, interesting. Still, I can only see one house for you… It will certainly be different but I think you should be in…SLYTHERIN!"